Three Entities Benefit from Bequest

Three local institutions—the Jasper County Library, Monticello Baptist Church and the Jasper County Historical Foundation—will share a bequest of some $4 million under terms of the will of Thomas B. Persons, a Monticello native who died last February.

Mr. Persons, who operated a widely respected interior decorating business in Atlanta for many years, stipulated that the governing body of the Jasper County Public Library hold half of its bequest and use the income for purchase of books on art, architecture and interior design. Income on the other half is to be accumulated until sufficient to finance “an area or space to house the books so accumulated.”

Half of the income from the Baptist Church’s one-third of the bequest is to go toward a church parlor to be established and named for Mr. Persons’ mother, Bessie Spears Persons. The other half is to be used at the discretion of the deacons, though Mr. Persons expressed a strong desire that some of it go toward the upkeep of the Truitt-Spears Cemetery in northern Jasper County.

The remaining one-third goes to the Historical Foundation, owner of the beleaguered Civic Center on College Street. Income “shall be accumulated to purchase a permanent home for the foundation, to be known as Thomas Persons Hall, the will stipulates. Income thereafter may be used at the discretion of the governing board.
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Robert Harris, an Atlanta certified public accountant and long-time friend of Mr. Persons, is executor of the will. He visited Monticello a couple weeks ago to inform officials of the beneficiary organizations about the will. Those officials are to meet next Wednesday with Mr. Harris to discuss details of the bequests, which total about $4 million depending on market conditions affecting securities involved.

Besides the local bequests, the will stipulated significant gifts to Shorter College and to the University of Cincinnati, where Mr. Persons received a degree in Interior Design. He also attended Auburn University and served in the Navy during World War II before launching the interior design career that brought him national recognition.

Mr. Persons, who was 89 at the time of this death on Feb. 28, grew up across Greene Street from the Baptist Church, in a house that stood at the present site of Pete’s Service Station. Besides asking in his will that his mother and father be recognized by the church and Historical Foundation, he directed that books financed by his gift to the library bear a stamp “indicating that the book was given by Thomas Persons (Jr.) in memory of his father Thomas Persons and his mother Bessie Spears Persons.